WILTSHIRE residents are being asked to help shape a ten-year strategy on how Wiltshire Council collects and manages household waste and recycling.
A consultation is now under way to get people’s views to ensure the strategy is representative of their opinions and enables them to reduce, re-use and recycle the waste they produce at home. The consultation is open until 14th November and can be found at http://consult.wiltshire.gov.uk/portal/
It currently costs Wiltshire Council upwards of £30million per year to manage all of Wiltshire’s household waste and recycling, so it is important that its long-term strategy is affordable. Currently, each Wiltshire household produces on average 566kg of non-recycled waste per year. The council has to pay to collect and manage waste and recyclable materials. Not all recycling has a value; any income that is generated from recycling goes towards offsetting a small part of the cost of delivering the service.
Bridget Wayman, Wiltshire Council cabinet member for waste said, “This strategy will help us determine how we run our waste services for the next decade. The questions in the consultation cover a broad range of ideas and suggestions as we want to be thorough and make sure we’ve had a careful look at all the options.
“Rightly so, people really care about these services and how they are run, so we hope to get lots of really constructive feedback which will help us as we plan ahead.”
Following the consultation, the draft version of the strategy will be reported to environment select committee, cabinet, and full council for consideration and to be adopted.
Wiltshire Council recently awarded contracts to FCC Environment to run their household recycling centres, and to Hills Waste Solutions to provide waste and recycling collection services and to manage recyclable materials, garden waste and non-recyclable waste.
